Dreaming of Wishing Wells

Last week my class went on a field trip to Linvilla Orchards along with the Pre-K through third grade classes. We had beautiful weather and got to go on a hayride, see farm animals, and learn how cider is made. The highlight of the trip for me, however, was the bus ride. The students do not ride buses to school, so for some of them it was their first time on a bus. We discussed appropriate bus behavior ahead of time, and I explained that they would need to speak in quiet voices, but I said it would be OK if they sang. As soon as we pulled out of the school parking lot, a few of my students began leading the class and soon the whole bus in all the songs we sing in class, especially our very favorite, the worship song “Every Move I Make.” It was a 30 minute bus ride each way, so eventually they ran out of songs. That’s when one boy in my class spoke up and said, “I know what we should sing!” Then he began chanting “When I say Hillshire, you say Farms!” Now I, being cable deprived...

In college one of my friends would often say, "Did that just happen?" after a particularly strange conversation or experience. It quickly caught on as a catchphrase for my group of friends, and we found plenty of opportunities to use it. I have a lot of "Did that just happen?" moments at school, but unfortunately there's not usually another adult for me to ask or laugh with. One of the many reasons I loved having Linda in my room last year as an aide was that I'd feel better or more sane just making eye contact with her after something bizarre happened, like a child saying something ridiculous. Like last year when a girl in my class proudly declared that she'd hit the gym teacher, Mr. Jeff, with a tennis ball...in the vagina! She practically screamed the last part and thought she was something special, and I didn't have the heart to inform her, no, that's not quite right. Anyway, Linda promptly dismissed herself from the carpet to laugh hyster...

First of all, I had an interesting experience the other day. I got a new student. And I got his mom. She dropped him off (late) and then ended up staying for the day. The whole entire day. She was in my classroom all day. Maybe this doesn't sound like that big a deal, but I don't think I've ever had any adult in my classroom for the entire day (since student teaching), and it really made it hard for me to teach and act in a usual way. I was mad at myself pretty much the whole time for not kicking her out, but then she kept doing nice things like offering to donate a CD player for my class (which I can't wait for!), saying she wants to help with marketing and fundraising for the school (both desperate needs), and offering to donate and science curriculum and teach social studies lessons about places she's visited. So I felt like I couldn't kick her out. All in all, it was OK, but I was thoroughly exhausted at the end of the day. I felt like when the kids misb...

1. This picture is great because he was miserable a majority of the time. He cried and yelled basically every day and didn't really play with the other kids. But you wouldn't know it looking at this. 2. They are precious. Especially when they weren't giving me major attitude. 3. Happy memory: when they finally earned their pajama reading party (the second to last week of school). It was so much fun and gratifying to see how much they really loved books. 4. They day we got our beanbag chairs, graciously donated from Fellowship Church. Maybe they were a little disappointed when they realized they weren't giant red sacks full of candy, but the beanbags really spiced up my otherwise lame reading area, and I loved this impromptu moment of sharing and reading one day after rest time during free play. That was a big deal for this group! 5. This child is so, so, so dear to me. His behavior and academic challenges took a lot of my energy last year, and we had our hard times. B...

So...chronicling my first year of teaching in blog format did not turn out so well, considering my last post was at the end of September. Why? Well, laziness is one reason. And lots of things happened I really didn't feel like reliving by writing them down. One of which is that right after my last post, I was mugged. And I didn't feel like writing about that. Which led to me just not writing anymore at all. But I kept at least a somewhat regular journal, even though it wasn't very detailed, so all of my crazy, hilarious (well, now they're hilarious...they weren't all at the time) stories will not be lost forever. And now I am a second year teacher. For some reason it is really exciting to not have to say I'm a first year teacher anymore. It definitely comes with a feeling of much more credibility, and I think it makes parents take me a little more seriously. They know I survived one year at Urban Promise and willingly came back for more, so I must be tough and ...

I'm home for the weekend. Hence the title. I think I am indeed regaining my sanity, probably only to lose most of it again this week. This week was very up and down. Tuesday and Thursday were pretty good days. Thursday at the end of the day the kids said to me, "Miss Seefeldt, you're smiling!" That was nice. But it's a shame that I must be smiling so rarely that they feel the need to point it out when I am. Because it's basically a fact that I typically smile all the time. I had some volunteers in my class this week, which was in a lot of ways nice. Sometimes I think it added to the chaos though. Wednesday morning Miss Lisa volunteered in my class. She is a mom who homeschools her kids and comes to UrbanPromise twice a month to do a craft with kindergarten. She is so sweet, and I felt horrible (as well as really embarrassed) that the kids were so out of control and that some of them were really disrespectful to her. I started to cry a little on the playground...

Another week over. Another weekend to regain my sanity and be refreshed. This week was really hard. In some ways the class is getting better I guess. But there were also moments of pure chaos this week. And I felt really helpless. For whatever reason, nothing I've tried has worked to make Sincere listen to me. I can tell he has no respect for me, and he basically laughs when I tell him what to do and then throws whatever he can find and climbs to the top of the cubbies. It's quite disruptive to my teaching as you can imagine. And everyone keeps telling me to "be really firm," which I'm sure is good advice, but no one is able to tell me what that practically looks like. I'm sure I have to find out for myself what that will look like for me. It's been really encouraging to talk to Kaitlin who in a lot of ways had a tough first year of teaching last year and hear that she made it through a lot of the same things I'm facing now. Overall, even though God is...